I Think I Can...Celebrate!

I think today is the busiest cake day I have had in the history of baking cakes. When Michelle called and asked if I could make a train cake for her son I could not resist. She also asked for something a little different, two dozen cupcakes for the day care. Now as many of you know I do make cupcakes but they are not my most wonderful thing that I do. However when we started talking about a Thomas the Train cake it sort of all fell together.
I knew to do the cupcakes just right I needed to find some Thomas decorations. I went to one of my favorite little shops in Fayetteville, Crafts Frames and Things. There I found everything I needed. Although I could not locate a Thomas train pan I did locate a train cake pan and Thomas cupcake picks that I could use for the cupcakes. When I left there I was excited about the prospects ahead.

I started by baking the the butter train cake then turned to the cupcakes. I also used my same butter cake recipe to make the cupcakes. I iced the cupcakes in big white swirls of icing then sprinkled them with blue crystallized sugar to match the lightest part of Thomas's Engine. Then the pick of Thomas went into the top of each cupcake. I had thought about doing both red and blue cupcakes however with little ones I have learned that it is best to keep things simple and make sure everyone gets the same thing. When I got done I was tickled and the uniformity of all the cupcakes and wish I had extras to try one myself.

After finishing up the cupcakes it was time to turn to the cake. Since I was using a train cake pan and not a Thomas the Engine pan I had to do a little adjusting during decorating. The cake was a train cake adapted the best I could to make it look like Thomas the Engine. I puffed up his cheeks with grey icing and made sure his cars were in complimentary blue and red coloring. When Michelle came to pick it up she seemed very pleased with the cakes and cupcakes and was ready to celebrate her son's birthday.

Just a side note to this story....I recently took inventory of my cake pans (yes, there are many cake pans) and found my very own Thomas the Train pan that I thought I had. I have done a new catalog system so I can more easily find the pans and am happy to say there can be a variety of train cakes now.

Strolling to the Baby

Baby Shower cakes are all sorts of fun for me. Boy or girl, or not knowing leads to a creative cake which as you know can be fun. One of my coworkers, let's call her Tameka, asked if I would bake a cake for a shower she was throwing. She loves babies so I didn't think twice when she asked me to do this. After a day or so of looking at cakes she said she would like me to bake a carriage cake. The cake needed to have blue accents because they were pretty sure a baby boy would be on the way. After a little more conversation I found out that the mother to be was one of my former 4-H members who had aged out of our program, that made me extremely proud to be able to make her cake for her.
A few days before the shower the locations, Swank, a local restaurant not far from the house was the location to be for the shower. Since it was so close I offered to deliver the cake to the shower. The guest list was to include 20-25 people. An average cake will feed 15 to 20 people and I was trying to figure out how to make sure there was enough for everyone. So just to make sure I made a dozen cupcakes to place around the carriage cake. The cupcakes had little blue rattles on them to go with the theme of the party. Once I got it delivered and set up it was obvious that the mother to be as well as the shower participants were happy with the results. I was told later that there was nothing left, which to me is the biggest compliment ever. Good luck to the mother to be and her soon to be son.

Giving Birth to Baby Cupcakes

Apparently I have a problem saying no. Imagine that. Which is why I often do several cakes or take several orders at one time as a matter of fact I find it very relaxing to decorate so this past weekend I must have been relaxed. A friend of mine, former co-worker, current 4-H volunteer, and all around good egg, let's call her Missy, called me to see if we could come up with something fun for her cousin's baby shower. We started off with cake squares which I quickly shied away from due to issues with other cake square orders I have had. So after talking up and down and sideways we settled on cupcakes. We started talking about pink cupcakes (according to all reports the baby will be a girl) but not pink cake. As a matter of fact we have butter cupcakes with white icing and pink feet. As we got closer to the date the order grew and the instructions melded into a new form. We wanted pink icing but not baby pink, so I suggested hot pink (which is soooooo easy to create) but we settled on pink with a hint of orange. We also dropped the feet and I added my cupcake trees to hold the 40 plus cupcakes that were needed. To add to the texture I decorated in two ways one was flat the other was cone shaped coming up in the center to add to the drama of the tree.

As I was in route to deliver the cupcakes I realized as Missy and I were discussing the color that they were really grandma pink not baby pink or orange pink. So I was not sure how that would work out. Missy showed me the roses she got to decorate with and one batch was orange with pink edges the other were a deep pink. I did not put them on the stand for photos however I do have a photo of them strecthed out on racks after being iced.

As the report goes the cupcakes matched the color scheme perfectly and the mother to be downed three cupcakes in a row. Although one report says she ate one whole, and then had two more that were eaten more carefully I am going with the thought that she really enjoyed them and I know she had a great baby shower. Now we just have to wait for the big day...maybe we will need a welcome cake for the big event? Just a thought!